Pitt remembers: "Cindy Sheehan was the first #Occupier."

Ah, the Summer of '05! William Rivers Pitt was the Pied Piper of DUmmieland, prolix prog blogger supreme, leading an army of psychophants enthralled with the Pitt and the Ponderous. True, a chink had emerged in his armor through the Andyscam scandal, but Pied Piper Pitt had recovered nicely and was back to leading the anti-Bush hatefest at the DUmp. Yes, it was a young, vigorous, 33-year-old William Rivers Pitt back then, a rising star in the ranks of the barking moonbats. And William had his eye set on higher things still: talking headness, punditry, a paid position on a political staff--the sky was the limit in the Summer of '05.

Meanwhile, down at the Bush Ranch in Texas, a woman named Cindy Sheehan was making a name for herself by standing in a ditch outside the President's ranch as a form of protest. Gazing down from his barstool in Boston, the aspiring young Pitt saw all the attention Cindy Sheehan was getting and decided to glom on. Thus, donning his Midnight Cowboy gear (pictured above), Journo-activist Pitt, reporting for truthout, set out to stand with Mother Sheehan in her ditch and get the scoop. As he went, Pitt was singing this sanguine song:

MAKE ME KNOWN, COUNTRY ROAD
Tune: "Take Me Home, Country Roads"

Almost hades, Crawford Texas
Bush Ranch protest, Sheehan doin' talk shows
Press is out there, underneath the tree
Lookin' for some talkers, might as well be me

Country road, make me known
To the place I belong
Guest opinion, TV pundit
Make me known, country road

All my DUmmies rally round me
Mindless, lazy, looking for a leader
Read my bloggings, written on the fly
Boring waste of bandwidth, glazing of the eye

Country road, make me known
To the place I belong
Guest opinion, TV pundit
Make me known, country road

I wear a hat, in the mirror I see Eastwood
The ladies on DU think that I'm hot when I pose
But sweatin' in the sun I get the feelin'
That I should have worn some lighter clothes, lighter clothes

Country road, make me known
To the place I belong
Guest opinion, TV pundit
Make me known, country road

Country road, make me known
To the place I belong
Guest opinion, TV pundit
Make me known, country road . . .

Ah, the Summer of '05! Those were the glory days, the salad days, the halcyon days for young William Rivers Pitt. But then came the Spring of '06. Fitzmas. Freudenschade. The Rove indictment scoop. 24 business hours. Pitt's fate was sealed vs. sealed. No more dreams of TV punditry. No more chance of working on a political staff. Now Mumsy would have to support Wee Willie in perpetuity. Bouncer at Bukowski's, free-blogging for truthout--that would be about as high as the Pitt star would rise. From the penthouse to the outhouse. From sensation to laughingstock. And so it was that, just a year after bravely standing in the ditch, Pitt was in the pits, and he was singing a different tune:

EVERYBODY'S TALKIN' 'BOUT ME
Tune: "Everybody's Talkin' at Me"

Everybody's talkin' 'bout me
I don't hear a word they're sayin'
Only the hands held on my ears

People mock and laughin'
I can't see their faces
'Specially in case I disappear

I'm goin' where I stand with Sheehan
In a roadside ditch
Goin' where the weather suits my clothes

Headin' off to my happy place
Even if in my mind
And skippin' over the dancepad in my home



Now it is 2012, and at 40 years old, an older and sadder William Rivers Pitt must desperately cling to those memories of when his star was on the rise. A sad spectacle now is this pitiful Pitt. Like a paunch-gutted, cauliflower-eared prizefighter recalling the days when he was young and fit and in his prime, a long-ago memory is all he has left.

"And then there are these young whipper-snapper 'Occupy' johnny-come-latelys! Claiming the spotlight, are they? Kids these days! They don't know what we grizzled veterans went through back in the days of Bush! Why, we stood in a ditch, uphill, braving ferocious fire ants for two, three hours at a time! And we liked it! They owe us a debt of gratitude! And if they don't give it to us," Pitt says, "by gum, I'll give it to myself!"

Which is what Pitt does, here in this THREAD, "It just occurred to me: Cindy Sheehan was the first #Occupier."

So let us now join William Rivers Pitt as he tries to claim glory for himself by going from--see if you can follow this--from Occupy to Sheehan to himself, in Fire Ant Red, while the commentary of your humble guest correspondent, the wag tailoring the doggerel, Charles Henrickson, still wondering if the 40 Year Old Insurgent will ever get off his Barcalounger long enough to go to an Occupy protest, is in the [brackets]:

It just occurred to me: Cindy Sheehan was the first #Occupier.

[Yeah, I was trying to figure out a way to take some credit for something, and this just occurred to me!]

I know some here are done with her, and that's fine; everyone is entitled to their opinion.

[I know some here are done with ME, and that's NOT fine.]

But remember 2005. . . .

[I sure do. I've got a whole 2005 shrine here in my apartment: my old dancepad; a "V For Vendetta" poster; a George W. Bush matching dartboard and spittoon; and "My hump my hump my hump my hump my hump" playing in the background.]

the war had been raging for three years, but the media basically hid the war, so it wasn't part of the public consciousness.

[Gee, you're RIGHT, Pitt! There was NOTHING in the newspapers or TV about that Iraq business! We had never even HEARD about it up to that point!]

Until Cindy Sheehan sat down in the mud outside George's ranch in Crawford and refused to leave until she got some answers.

[And no one would have heard about Cindy Sheehan, and thus about the war, until . . . wait for it . . . until . . .]

I was there. . . .

[Yes, there it is, folks! Until WILLIAM RIVERS PITT was there. William Rivers Pitt, the Ernie Pyle of the ditch.]

I was there, and it was a privilege to be a part of.

[Even though I had to leave my motel room that afternoon and spend a couple of hours actually at the ditch and it was hot and I got sweaty a little bit and those d*mn fire ants were biting at my ankles and then when I got back to the motel I couldn't find a sports bar to watch the Red Sox. . . .]

When she was done, the war had a face...and from that point on, support for the war went into the tank.

[Nope, no other factors. Just Cindy and me.]

She was the first one.

[And I . . . was there.]

[The DUmmies respond . . .]

she rubbed me the wrong way. . . . Sorry, I just think she took advantage of a situation.

[What about the guy who took advantage of the woman taking advantage of a situation? How does he rub you?]

Nobody ever had a sit in before her?

[Nope, she was the first. The OWSies owe everything to her--and to Pitt, of course. Pitt explains . . .]

I suppose I'm speaking of the 21st century Bush/post-Bush phenomenon of Occupy, dealing specifically with the issues of these days.

[Time is divided into Pre-Pitt and Post-Pitt. Pre-Pitt doesn't count.]

I didn't say she was the first "sit-in." I said she was the first #Occupier. A fine hair to split, but there it is.

[William doesn't have many hairs to split these days, but if he can find one, he'll split it.]



[Another DUmmie chimes in . . .]

I was there too. Met at the house then headed out to the ranch; Code Pink was there, so were Iranian dissidents; lots of comraderie, music and free food.

[Tofuburgers, Dixie Chicks, Iranian dissidents, Medea Benjamin in pink tights--what more could you want?]

Cindy was antecedent and inspiration to Occupy, no doubt.

[And all those anti-war protests that took place after Bush left office and Obama the Bomber took over and continued the illegal wars. Yes, all of those massive anti-Obama protests that . . . that . . . hmmm. . . .]

I had not thought of Cindy in a while.

[The question is: Had you thought of Will Pitt for a while? That is the reason for the post.]